Steve Hinton Jr beats world speed record for piston-engined aircraft

On September 2, Steve Hinton Jr. established a new speed record for a propeller-driven piston-engined aircraft by flying the heavily-modified P-51 Voodoo at an average speed of 531.53 mph (855.41 kph), thus largely defeating the previous record, established by Will Whiteside Jr. and Yak-3U Steadfast in 2012.

Despite this achievement, Hinton and his team were a bit disappointed with the result as they had hoped to defeat the 528 mph speed record set by Lyle Shelton with the F8F Bearcat Rare Bear in 1989. Since the FAI’s regulations have evolved, Shelton’s speed record is no longer official, but Steve Hinton was hoping to better it by at least 1%, i.e. the minimum required to validate a new record. This would have required an average speed of 533.28 mph.

Nevertheless, Steve Hinton is now the proud owner of the world speed record for a propeller-driven, piston-engined aircraft.